It's beginning to look a lot like...

Maybe it is all the uncertainty out there, or maybe it is a change of perspective due to the economy, but I am really looking forward to losing myself in the Christmas season this year.

Every year, my Christmas obsession begins at the first sign of autumn. In Atlanta, it is typically over 90 degrees through August and well into September. In early September my mornings typically include my wife wining how hot it is and that she can't wear her long sleeve t-shirts and how unfair that is since it is September and how the weather is cool in Paris or New Jersey right now and if we lived there...about this point I tune out to keep from crying.

However, there will be one 3 day stretch near the end of September in which we will get a lot of rain mixed with a slight cool front, and I will wake up to a slightly brisk morning with temperatures in the low 60's. I will notice a brown crunchy leaf on the ground. Against my will, a switch is set to the "On" position in a part of my brain that knows how to decorate sugar cookies and thinks the combination of red and green is brilliant.

All the voices in my head simultaneously stop their constant jabbering and begin to softly sing..."It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Everywhere you go...". It's the one of the few times the voices agree. I see evidence of this everywhere. I see the red and green of traffic lights as decorations. As my son puts together Legos in the living room, I am suddenly transported to Christmas morning in which I attempt to figure out some piece of technology while my beautiful wife and son put together a 500 piece Lego model of the Death Star. The classical music on NPR sounds more like the beginning "The First Noel" by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir than Bach. I break out the sweaters and jackets.

Of course, a few days later I regret this as I hear the talking head on the weather channel call for "Freaky Hot in Atlanta mixed with humidity as thick as my over styled hair. If you can go through the day naked covered in ice, that would be best." I sweat through the next few days in a wool sweater and a festive turtleneck, but do not let the pool of perspiration that builds in my pants on the way to work and the fact my eyes burn at the smell of my own body odor diminish the level of my Christmas spirit.

My commitment is rewarded like it was this weekend at Target. We just finished picking out my son's Halloween costume for the year, and I was getting over my jealousy that my son grows up in an age in which full Darth Vader costumes, with full internal musculature and lightsabers, are available where I was forced to pretend to be Obi Won by stealing my parents brown bed sheets and trying to make a broom handle blue with food coloring and crayons. I tell myself to be happy for him as I turn the corner and find myself in the middle of an isle surrounded by decorations for "the most wonderful time of the year." To my left are fake evergreen trees while to my right are enough decorations for all the trees in the world. There are candy canes, and stockings, and garland. I am absolutely giddy. Right now, even the small figurine of Santa visiting the manger of Jesus does not detract from this moment. Christmas is here in all it's glory...at least it is here at the one isle in Target in early October. But it's here.

My wife sees me and knows it has begun. I will soon come home from work with a bag of groceries filled with hot chocolate, smores, and peppermint candy canes. We begin asking each other what we want for Christmas. We both know that these requests are not to be taken seriously. They are fueled by my delirious ecstasy that is the beginning of our Christmas season.

For me Christmas is filled with hope. It is the end of another year and I am filled with hope for next year. Our industry is a lot slower from right before Thanksgiving until the new year. Rarely does a developer want to begin a project at the end of the year. There are parties and get-togethers and time spent with those I love. It is a more relaxed pace and a time we as a family connect and laugh and play games and watch old Christmas movies. We over-decorate our house, as those who have visited can attest. Last year we had 5 trees in our little house, with garland and stockings and lights inside and outside.

But it is so much more. I take the Christmas time and reconnect with God, thanking Him for sending His son to save the world. Not just the people in the world, but to redeem the world itself. There is so much pain and suffering by so many people and that is not what God intended. He loves us so much that He did not give up on us. His plan is to redeem His creation and return it to the perfection we and His creation were created for. That is a comforting thought. I see the glass nativity scene on my mantel in the office and am impressed at the bravery of Joseph and the love and commitment of Mary and the irony of that small baby in the manger. I love that small baby more than anything, more than my wife and kids, more than myself and more everything on His earth. I have devoted my life in serving and saying "Thank You" to that small baby for all He has done for me. God's crazy plan was the redemption of all of creation through a baby. Amazing.

In the midst of all we find ourselves in, all the frustration and happiness, all the broken and realized dreams, all the sadness and joy, all the pain and beauty, I try to remember that He has not given up on me. Christmas reminds me of that.

I can't remember a holiday season in which these words ring so true for me.

We need a little Christmas
Right this very minute,
Candles in the window,
Carols at the spinet.
Yes, we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute.
Slice up the fruitcake;
It's time we hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.
For we need a little music,
Need a little laughter,
Need a little singing
Ringing through the rafter,
And we need a little snappy
"Happy ever after,"
Need a little Christmas now.
Need a little Christmas now.

Come on Christmas. If anyone is up for caroling anytime soon, let me know.

I need a little Christmas now.